On Tuesday the Fourth Week of Lent our Church invites us to first read and reflect on a passage from the book of Leviticus (19:1-18, 31-37) entitled "Right conduct towards one's neighbor". Our treasure, which follows, is from a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope.
Saint Leo became pope in the year 440. Saint Leo was a Roman aristocrat, and was the first pope to have been called "the Great". Saint Leo is known as one of the best administrative popes of the ancient Church. His work branched into many areas of the church, indicative of his notion of the pope's total responsibility for the flock of Christ. In the 96 sermons which have come down to us, we find Leo stressing the virtues of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer, and expounding Catholic doctrine with clarity and conciseness, particularly the dogma of the Incarnation. Leo is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and having persuaded him to turn back from his invasion of Italy.
The name "Leviticus" was given to the third book of the Pentateuch by the ancient Greek translators because a good part of this book deals with concerns of the priests, who are of the tribe of Levi.
The book mainly treats cultic matters (i.e., sacrifices and offerings, purity and holiness, the priesthood, the operation of the sanctuary, and feast days) but is also interested in various behavioral, ethical, and economic issues (e.g., sexual practices, idolatrous worship, treatment of others, the sale of land, slavery). The goal of the laws is not merely legislative. For the most part they cohere as a system and attempt to inculcate a way of life in the book's hearers and readers. In addition to these concerns, Leviticus, comprising as it does the center of the Pentateuch, carries forward the narrative of Exodus.
